No MoreClose CallsThe Age of OpulenceNew York City’s two major train terminalsenjoy some fresh looks this spring

Penn Station is the subject of Conquering Gotham—A Gilded
Age Epic: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels

($27.95, Penguin Group USA, 2007), and Grand Central’s Campbell
Apartment, dating back to the Roaring ’20s, recently underwent
a makeover. The “apartment,” the former office and salon of
businessman John W. Campbell, once was considered the “biggest
single room in New York.” Campbell and his wife threw lavish
parties there, but in recent years the landmark has served as a
sumptuous watering hole for travelers.

Last winter, British interior designer Nina Campbell (no relation)
refreshed the iconic space—her first project in the U.S. “I love the
idea of someone having an apartment in a train station,” Campbell
says. “It is so evocative of a certain age … What [we] were really
aiming for was the combination of an apartment and a plush railway interior of a more opulent, bygone era.”

On the West Side, author Jill Jonnes tells the tale of one of the
greatest engineering feats in the city’s history. Conquering Gotham
chronicles the massive, years-long undertaking of building tunnels
in the Hudson River and showcases Penn Station when it was the
world’s largest train station and fourth-largest building. The original space opened in 1910, but in 1963, having suffered financial
crises, Pennsylvania Railroad razed it and sold the space above the
station, dumping many of its classical effects in the Meadowlands.

“I’m very hopeful,” says Jonnes, believing there’s no time like
the present for refurbishment. “The stars have aligned to see Penn
Station brought back to life in a far more splendid incarnation.”